Aug
22

Too Sick to Edit. Or Punctuate Properly. Or Think of a Title.

Am sick. So, so, sick.
My eyes burn, but still I write to you, out of love. And also boredom.
I am getting my period as well, which I hope explains the constant weeping. Otherwise I am losing my health and my mind at the same time, and that just doesn’t seem fair.

Last night, I came home feeling headachy to discover that I had not even been named a finalist in a writing competition I entered a few months ago. This discovery sent me into a spiral of wailing and whateverwillbecomeofme, amidst much droll mockery from Miss Rothschild.
{Who, by the way, has taken up with a butler named Snide, because that’s just what I need, more people in my head. One snarky editrix isn’t enough, apparently–now I have a serpent-tongued English butler as well.}

A few hours later, feeling feverish and shaky–but calmer and full of pasta–I received the kindest, most perfect email from a reader of this site. The Actually walked into the living room to find tears rushing from eyes as I handed him my laptop:
“Read…email…it’s so wuh-wuh-wonderful!”
The Actually read it and agreed it was a nice email, and was I sure I was feeling ok?
“I love people,” I whispered, my eyes filling again with tears. The Actually felt my forehead.

I woke up at five this morning feeling like a rag. An old, old rag. An old, trembly rag with a fine coating of perspiration.
I left a message for my boss that I would not be in, wrote a possibly nonsensical letter to a coworker about some corrections to be reviewed, and then I went back to sleep.

Today there were panic attacks about the papers I have due this weekend and whether or not I would be summarily fired for taking a sick day during the busy season at work. These panic attacks were drizzled with a generous helping of tears about how people write me perfectly lovely email messages and I don’t even have time to respond properly and I can’t get my hair to do anything anymore.

I charm even myself, some days.

I just went to take my temperature to impress you all with my illness but now it is only 99.3.
It seems like it ought to be much higher.
Do you know that I have almost NO appetite at all? That is how close to death I am.

The Actually has gone to fetch me mashed potatoes to fight the virus, and I may try to disinfect myself from the inside with some brandy.
In Switzerland, dogs are always bringing sick people brandy, after all. Aren’t they?
Perhaps I am delirious.
Tomorrow you may expect either a better entry or a regretful announcement from my estate…

By Alexa | Posted in Ceci N'est Pas Une Ecrivaine |